


No Patience for Dawn's Rising

by axkme



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Brief Switching of POVS for clarity sake, Canon Compliant, Character Death, Dream SMP Finale Spoilers, Explosions, Family Dynamics, Fireworks, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Other, Phil's got wings, Pogtopia, Swords, Wanted to write the other side of the drama unfolding, Wilbur and Philza-Centric, Wilbur thinks he's hallucinating at first, and he isn't entirely human, but i got lazy, l'manberg, no beta we die like men, which isn't entirely uncommon in Dream SMP says my headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27662506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/axkme/pseuds/axkme
Summary: The abrupt shouting in response to the crackling boom of fireworks, strong enough to make the pebbles tremble beneath his leather-clad boots. The string of pained cries and curses spiraling off of European and American tongues - it all fell on deaf ears. Nothing but a soft hum to his ears; the sound reminiscent of the buzzing of Tubbo's bees in his small garden on peaceful days. When they were still fighting for independence.When L'manberg was still his, firm within his grasps. He should've held her more tightly, maybe then things would've been different.The chaos was merely white noise as his devils were raking their claws across his mind, sweeping him off his feet.You want to press it, you know you want to. You've been here so many times. Craved the words of your former nation's song into the stone walls in a font that showed your dedication. That showed your insanity to come back here seven, no, eight times now, only to leave every time feeling empty.Let's feel something.Wilbur pushes the button.
Relationships: Dave | Technoblade & TommyInnit, Dave | Technoblade & Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Jschlatt & Wilbur Soot, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot, TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 9
Kudos: 112





	No Patience for Dawn's Rising

**Author's Note:**

> HEAVY Spoilers for Dream SMP's Finale, proceed with caution. I hope you enjoy!

His cold, slightly calloused fingers peeled off from his side, clutching onto the stone wall on his left, curling around the curve of the corner. His nails scratched dully against the stone, and a breathy laugh escapes him as Wilbur stops just millimeters behind the threshold. The corners of his eyes crinkle a bit, dark oak-brown eyes swirling with fond endearment at the menacing sight of lyrics obsessively scrawled into the walls. Reminded of the nights where he and his men chanted the song, arms around another and swaying to the song.

And there, just in front of him, it was.

The button.

The menacing sight of the button made of plain oak just a few strides in front of him, untouched. It was so innocent-looking, nothing overawing until you looked under the surface of it all. All the redstone that led to the patches of explosive dynamite under the foot of what used to be L'manberg. The last time that Wilbur had worked with such passion before was when he was trying to gain independence for L'manberg. When he was fighting against Dream's rally for the taste of freedom. It was nothing but wistful memories now when the sight of curled horns and slicked-back hair came in. Where the ashes of Wilbur's rule and everything he stood for were kicked behind him by a business man's polished oxford shoes. A familiar face, a familiar tale.

It left a bitter and foul taste in his mouth.

The room was ready - it had always been ready for him. Waited for his call, for his command. The button had no voice, no hands, yet it drew him in by the collar of his jacket and called to him with a siren's voice. Enticed him closer to press it and hear it ignite. It made the hand that lay at his side twitch a bit in anticipation, and before he knew it, Wilbur was already striding over and settling himself onto the chair, slumping into the chair whilst bouncing a leg. His gaze was hyper fixated on the untouched button on the wall, so strong that he was sure that he could make the wood splinter just by his wild stare alone. Last time he tried to bloody press it to fill the hole in the ex-leader's heart; to wrap up the symphony that he had begun with a waving baton in his hand; someone had sabotaged him. Wilbur clenched his teeth together, his molars grinding together as his eyes narrowed through the curly strands of his hair that was swept to the side.

He didn't even realize how his body had become so rigid and tense, how his hands began to visibly tremble just ever so slightly.  _ The button's right there  _ cooed in the back of his mind,  _ it's right there. In your grasps, Wilbur. How long had it been since you had something within your grasps? When did you feel like you actually had something that you could call your own? _

Too long. 

Everything that he built L'manberg for... It didn't stand for what Wilbur had imagined it to stand for. Once the walls had been torn down, once the flag had been set ablaze by his own son's hand - L'manberg was gone. Wilbur was never the same thereafter, and while he truly did care for Tommy, he knew that the blond was too narrow-minded and stubborn to see that they had nothing to reclaim again. It was gone. It was over.

If he was ever going to press the button, it was now.

Wilbur brought his inner wrist up to his mouth, grabbing onto the leather with his teeth and flipping his fingerless glove inside out. Taking his glove into his other hand so it wasn't loosely hanging from his mouth, his ungloved hand would hover over the button; skin paler than he had remembered. It was expected, seeing that he had lived in the shadows of a ravine for months now. A hum rumbled lowly from the back of his throat, the sound trickling into silence as he breathed out from his nose. 

"I heard there  **was** a special place..." he muttered softly under his breath. Wilbur's voice was raspy and light, trailing off somberly before putting slow pressure on the button.

It was over. Finally, to complete his unfinished symphony- 

"What are you doing?"

Wilbur's breath hitched at the familiar voice, one he hadn't heard in years now. Not since Wilbur had flown from the nest to find his place in the world, with Tommy stubbornly following him, wanting to find his own destiny alongside his beloved brother. It was so unnerving to hear his guardian's voice after all these years - Wilbur was sure that he was imagining it in his head. What were the logistics of the man being here now, at such a perfect timing? After so long? For a broad-shouldered man with straight blond hair to come strolling in, to look at Wilbur with kind blue eyes? It was too good to be true. Wilbur was imagining it - imagining it all. He ignored the fear that began to crawl up his spine, how the button sprung up against the founder hesitantly pulled his hand away. While the movement was hesitant, it was quick, like it burned him. Wilbur was acting like a child being caught red-handed, involuntary guilt gnawing at his gut.

Wilbur didn't dare move to look behind him, even if everything in his being was itching him to check. He allowed his dark gaze to shift to the side, staring down at the corner of the room. 

"Phil?" He called out tentatively, the silence consuming him.

"What are you doing." It was a repeat of the question earlier, but Wilbur could hardly think it was an inquiry anymore. It was uttered like a demand, the pitch of the blond man's voice dropping gravelly as if he was about to pull him into a lecture. A lecture that Wilbur could care less for.

"I wasn't doing anything-" The words spilled out of his mouth, and Wilbur hated how hasty his tone sounded. "We-" The lanky man scrambled to keep his composure, standing a bit straighter. He didn't dare look behind him. "We made Tubbo president! We won," he declared, though the words felt awfully fake on his tongue. Technically,  _ Pogtopia  _ won, but it wasn't a win to Wilbur. Truly winning meant... He trailed off that thought. "We won. Schlatt's gone."

A hum came from behind him, monotone and unbelieving. 

"Schlatt's gone, Phil, it's good." Wilbur reaffirmed, trying to push down the voice in his head. He was done envisioning. Done dreaming.

"Uh huh," was the dismissive reply he got.  _ It's not gone _ . "You are... Where, exactly?"

"In... L'manberg," Wilbur supplied a half-baked truth. "It's in the area, you- you wouldn't know. You haven't been here." He laughed nervously with the roll of his head before ducking down. Absentmindedly, he fiddled with the fingerless glove that he had previously discarded, picking at the stitched seams. Hand-made. The gloves were a gift from Niki, but she had never been as talented with sewing as she was baking. He didn't blame her for it, but Techno had gotten so bothered by the stitch-work one evening that he snatched them from Wilbur and re-did them himself. 

Was it obvious that Wilbur was trying to distract himself? 

"It's like- It's complicated. Geography, you know? I'll just talk about it for hours and confuse you more if I-" He was cut off by the abrupt crackle of various fireworks being fired at once. It came from above, and Wilbur was sure that Techno had set them off. Tommy's voice was muffled through the ground, but it was loud enough for Wilbur to hear his brother shout Tubbo's name, even against the fireworks squeals. Surprised shouting laced with curses by multiple voices followed, and Wilbur looked up to the ceiling, before instinctively turning to look over his shoulder-

A scruffy blond man stood at the entryway of the room, cladded in a flowy robe with many shades of green. What sat on his head was a stripped lime-and-white bucket hat that hadn't changed one bit. Behind him were ruffled black wings closely folded together, and Wilbur didn't have to think to know that it was an uncomfortable position. 

Wilbur went numb at the sight at blue eyes boring into him from the dimly-lit hallway. 

"Phil?" He called, disbelief apparent in his umber eyes. He dropped the glove onto the cold floor, forgotten, as an uncomfortable and tense silence drew in.

"Mhm," Phil confirmed, the sound of fabric rubbing against one another could be heard as the middle-aged man crossed his arms. "In L'manberg, huh?" His stare was disapproving, no hint of the kindness that Wilbur remembered seeing as a teenager. Wilbur couldn't help but avert his gaze, taking a sudden interest to the words he carved into the wall. 

"This," Wilbur stepped back, out-stretching his arms as he looked all around the room in gesture. "This is L'manberg..." Wilbur's attention would land on the button behind him for seconds too long as he thought of a way to verbally weasel his way out. Phil noticed, subtly biting the inside of his cheek, inhaling the air that was impossibly thick with tension. The sound of Phil's wooden sandals scraping against the floor snapped Wilbur out of his trance, looking back to Phil as his guardian stepped into the room. His wings spread out a little more, now that they weren't being squished by the narrow walls of the hallway. The blond man was reaching out his hand, outstretching it in Wilbur's direction only to fall down to hold onto the chair, as if in a last-second decision. Wilbur didn't know if he was relieved or disappointed. 

He felt trapped. Pinned to a dart board and vulnerable. Wilbur hated it. 

His previously outstretched arms feel weightlessly down to his sides, before one anxiously cupping his face in thought.

"Okay, I will admit..." No. He didn't want to admit it. Not to Phil's face anyways. The rest of the words died before they could come out of his mouth. Phil already understood what he meant by it, though, he was always intuitive like that. "Do-" Wilbur looked at Phil in the eyes, and Phil couldn't help but frown.

Wilbur's face was dirty, soot and grime from battle sticking onto pale skin. There were gloomy bags sagging giving his eyes a sunken look. His features were more follow, more sharp than Phil had remembered them to be. Tired. He looked tired and trauma-stricken. 

It hurt Phil's heart. 

"Do you know what this button is? What it does?" Wilbur asked the shorter man in a quiet voice, gesturing vaguely to the button. 

"I do." 

"Have you heard the song?" Wilbur asked again, wistfully looking at the walls. Phil followed his gaze, and could only imagine an out-of-it Wilbur, chuckling darkly to himself as he feverishly hacked at the stone with a dagger and jagged wrote the words. He tried to suppress the small grimace that was forming at the thought. When Phil didn't say anything in turn, Wilbur continued on, holding his hands behind his back as he spoke. 

"I created it with my men. You always said you liked my music."

"I love your music," Phil mused, "home is too quiet without you strumming that guitar of yours." He added truthfully. Wilbur looked at him with a soft expression, that easy-going and charming smile that made the corners of his eyes crinkle. It reminded Phil of the boy who he raised. It seemed that little things didn't change. It made them both remember the cool mornings in the small cottage within a secluded forest, Wilbur strumming his guitar lightly whilst trying new lyrics as he went. Phil would be forcing Tommy down into a chair in the kitchen, scolding him for trying to skip out on the most important meal of the day. Techno would be slipping out of the home, purposefully when he knew Tommy was distracted, with a sharpened sword at his side. It was an achingly domestic memory. 

But that was all it was. A memory. 

"I just noticed," Wilbur said out of the blue, attention whisked away from his guardian as he strode towards the corner of the room. Phil followed his movements with his eyes, watching as Wilbur's fingertips began to trace over the words on the wall. "Past tense; 'was.' There  **was** a special place where men could go. It's poignant, Phil." 

It was quiet in the room, distantly one could hear the odd, muffled shout that would come from above. Wilbur bitterly thinks about his memories of Pogtopia and L'manberg, and Phil's mind racing to find the right words to say. He had to stop Wilbur from pressing that button, yes, and he knew that Wilbur was going to listen to anyone, it was going to be him. But this was a Wilbur who was far too gone. A man who had been through so much, so much that Phil didn't even know about. The Wilbur he saw fragments of within this person's soul? Yes. But this Wilbur? This Wilbur might as well just have been a ticking bomb on its last digits. The air of uncertainty made his wings twitch uncomfortably. 

"It's gone. It's not there anymore-"

"It is there," Phil interjected with raised brows. He leaned forward, one of his wings stretching to ghostly brush over Wilbur's shoulder. "You just won it back, Will-"

Wilbur let out a ragged sigh, frustration evident in his body language as a hand went up to his face. Fingers threading through his curly strands and pushing back his hair from his eyes. "It DOESN'T represent what I built this nation for, PHIL!" Wilbur cried out, his angry voice bouncing off the walls, spinning around to look at the winged guardian. "L'manberg,  _ Manberg _ ," his face screwed up as he mockingly corrected himself, "is nothing but a breeding ground for violence and chaos now. There's nothing but blood on Tommy and I's hands. I told him, Phil, I told him that we would be the illegitimate rulers of this nation if we overthrew Schlatt." Wilbur chuckled, shaking his head. "I fucking told him that nothing good would come out of this." Jschlatt may have died a lonely, broken man, but he was right when he said he'd take down L'manberg with him. He got what he fucking wanted. 

And if that did nothing but bloody piss Wilbur off.

"I am so close to pressing this button. I've been here so many times," his hands shot up to hold his face, bending over himself.

"How many?" Phil asked quietly.

"Too many."

Wilbur snapped his head up, looking to the button, then up to the ceiling. His curly brown hair fell down as he drew his hands back, obscuring half of his vision. The sharp sound of netherite against netherite, arrows whirring through the bleak skies, and the combustion of fireworks being set off all at once. "Do you hear that? They're fighting," Wilbur laughed in disbelief. Chaos was blooming outside, something that the man, the  _ god _ , in the bone-white mask wanted. So many people were getting what they wanted today - why couldn't he? Why was he being stopped, specifically? 

His inner devils were coaxing him in the back of his mind, demanding him to wrap up the symphony that he had been working on for over a year now. They knew him better than anyone, and their reasonings were sound. Their propositions were so tempting that they practically swept him off his feet.  _ You've come in here, nothing changes. You go out there, nothing changes. Nothing of want comes. Aren't you tired of it? You even carved the words of your former nation's song into the stone walls, in font that showed your dedication to the craft. That showed your insanity to come back here seven, no, eight times now, only to leave every time feeling empty. _

_ Let's feel something. _

Wilbur reaches to the button, but something warm encapsulates his wrist and tugs it back in one swift motion, stopping him. 

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Phil asked, voice pressed unbelievably flat with seriousness. He tipped his chin up to look directly at Wilbur. "You worked countless days in making L'manberg and getting its independence, and then countless more in preparation to take it back." Wilbur's eyebrows furrowed slightly, wondering exactly how much Phil knew and how he knew. He had, personally, stopped sending letters to Phil after the first war with Dream. Tommy never wrote either. It didn't take long to piece two and two together, and Wilbur wasn't surprised that Techno had been sparsely updating Phil on what had been happening. He entertained the idea of Phil coming here sooner. Should he have come here sooner?

There would've been a chance that Phil could have convinced him to not blow up L'manberg.

"You just want to blow it all up?"

The lanky man let out a hiss of an exhale, threading his fingers through the hair on the back of his neck. He could feel the rough texture of his leather glove brush against his skin. "Yeah, Yeah I do." 

"There is a lot of TNT potentially connected to that button," Phil stated, grip on Wilbur's wrist tightening. As if Wilbur hadn't known that already. He was fully aware of what this button had the potential to do. "You fought so hard. You and the other's efforts will be in vain." 

_ They were always in vain.  _ It all went to shit the moment Schlatt had taken over. "I don't even know if it works anymore," he responded numbly to Phil. Truthfully, almost in a dejected voice. There was a bit of hope in Phil's eyes. "I could just press it and nothing could happen." Wilbur shrugged.

"Do you really wanna take that risk?" 

The sound of the fireworks popping outside were deafening, but they were nothing but white noise to Wilbur in the moment. He turned to Phil, the man he considered his parental figure, his father. Phil stared at him, wordlessly loosening his hold on Wilbur's wrist and ultimately letting go. Wilbur's hand fell limply to his side.

"Phil, there was a saying once by a traitor. Once part of L'manberg. I don't know if you've heard of him."

The blond man tilted his head at that, eyes filled with question and curiosity. He didn't dare interrupt Wilbur, though, only let out a hum for him to continue.

"His name was Eret. He had a saying," Wilbur tilted his head, a smile gracing his face. 

The blond man's wings ruffled, expanding as a tiny shiver ran through him. Phil opening his mouth to say something, but Wilbur just shook his head with that stupid grin overtaking his features.

"It was never meant to be." Before Phil could react, Wilbur had pushed the button.

Phil cursed God's name as the sound of hissing behind the button prolonged, cutting clean through the air. With wide eyes, he reached out towards his son and yanked him back from the button. Like a frightened feline with the fur along its back stood up and rippling like a roaring fire; Phil's wings would bristle, expanding enough for the tops of them to hit and drag against the ceiling as Phil stepped back.

The stone wall in front of them would cave in, and the impact of the explosions would blow them back. The fatherly instincts to protect his kin coursed through his entire body, but even the feeling of jagged stone slicing clean through soft skin would make any person let go - even if it was unwillingly. Phil was streamlined to the ground, face furrowing up in pain as he landed on his side, putting one of his wings in between to break his wall. Big mistake. 

Phil bit his tongue as he crushed his own splayed wing in the fall, letting out a surprised cry as he writhed. His pinned-down wing twitched violently as Phil quickly rolled off and scrambled onto his knees. The dispensing heat and sentiment in the billowing explosion's aftermath would attack his eyes, blinking back tears that were beginning to well in his blurry eyes.

Wilbur didn't put up a fight as Phil harshly pulled on his wrist as the button hissed, making the obviously taller man almost stumble over his feet. He didn't put up a fight when a burning sensation caressed his skin, when it began swallowing up his entire being. Did nothing when a blinding flash of sheet white and an array of intensely warm colors penetrated his vision, coming from behind as the wall crumbled and fell through. The forceful exhale as Wilbur's body was thrown like a ragdoll, back hitting the stone wall as the air was knocked out of his lungs. It was a miracle that the ceiling hadn't fallen through and crushed them both - he guessed that Lady Luck was still gracing him.

A shame. He idly wondered where she had been in the months before. Maybe because Phil was here that she decided to spare them both the awful death of being crushed under a broken ceiling? 

Wilbur's body ineffectually slumped down to the ground, eyes half-lidded as he looked directly towards the evening light that spilled into the room at the absence of the wall. His dark eyelashes fluttered as he slowly blinked, as if debating on whether or not to fall into unconsciousness. 

"WILL!" Phil all but squawked. His voice was echoing in Wilbur's busted ears, dissolving to nothing but irksome ringing. Lifting his head and bringing up a hand to the side of his head, Wilbur would cheekily salute before letting the back of his head bump up against the stone wall that he was uncomfortably leaning against. Damn did his neck ache. Everything ached. He greedily took in a breath, masochistically liking the burn that came with as the air filled his lungs. The brunet let out a loud and relieved sigh, edging towards a chuckle at the end. Wilbur began to pick himself up, putting a hand on the wall behind him for support.

The room was nothing but a jutting spur of rock now as Phil got up from his knees, glancing uneasily as fractures of the rock began to tumble down as he stopped just inches away from the edge. The podium was blown to smithereens, in its place was a blown canyon-sized crater. The large canal that L'manberg was built around was caught in the crossfire; its contents spilling into the crater and pooling at the bottom of it. It was still lightly showering outside, the blown water plummeting back down. Nothing in the area was left untouched by the dynamite. Debris was everywhere, and Phil was sure that he wasn't going crazy when he heard the roaring of more dynamite going off in the distance, and how the earth under him rumbled. 

Phil could faintly hear the distressed shouts of the warriors below. All of them dirty with wounds littering their bodies, bulked and equipped with heavy and enchanted netherite. Ashy smoke billowed towards the blue skies, and Phil couldn't help but stare with wide eyes. "It's all gone...!" He exclaimed, raising his bucket hat to look at everything more clearly. He leant out carefully, looking all around him to take all the physical damage in. 

"My L'manberg, Phil..." Wilbur gulped, parting his mouth as the wisps of a laugh began to bubble from the back of his throat. Phil could practically hear the smirk forming on his face. Wilbur strode towards the edge with brutish confidence for someone who looked like they could barely stand just a minute before. "My UNFINISHED symphony - FOREVER UNFINISHED." Wilbur laughed, true happiness coming from his tone as he dramatically opened his arms out. Phil would step back, shadow casting over his face as he retreated slightly into the crumbled room. "IF I CAN'T HAVE IT, NO ONE CAN." Wilbur declared with a boisterous shout, absentmindedly wiping his forehead with his sleeve, only to see a dark stain blooming and seeping into the leather.

Phil turned to look at Wilbur, despondency and apprehension in his ice blue gaze. It brought Wilbur a little to his senses. The severity of it all. 

Wilbur had blown up the heart of L'manberg, and he was going to go down with it.

"Phil," Wilbur grabbed his guardian by the shoulder, Phil's eyes scanning his son's intense expression. "Kill me."

"What?" Phil muttered in bewilderment as the brunet shoved a diamond sword into the supernatural's grasps.

"Do it. Kill me, kill me, kill me-" Wilbur repeated over and over again like a broken record, the words becoming more urgent as they continued on. "Murder me," in and icy tone, Wilbur would add, "They're waiting."

"They're wai...?" The words died on Phil's tongue, the winged mortal looking out to see that the majority of the crowd was miraculously staring at them, grasping their full attention. The sound of fireworks would go off in the background, but Phil's eyes picked Tommy out from the crowd, protectively in front of Tubbo. His youngest boy's expression was full of dismay and shock.  _ Phil? What are you doing here? Why are you here? What's happening- _ He could hear the numbing questions run through their minds like a storm. It was only half of them, however, the other half seemed to stay at the sidelines, looking up at Phil expectantly.

"They all want you to." Wilbur's voice mused behind him, and for once Phil wished that Wilbur could be quiet for just a moment. "The finale is here," Wilbur whispered. "Do it."

"I can't-" Phil said, sucking in a frustrated breath, looking back at Wilbur. "You're my son!" Phil shouted

"DO IT," Wilbur shouted back with a furrowed brow.

"No matter what you do, I can't-" Phil was cut off by the sound of Wilbur whipping back, clenched fist colliding with the stone so hard that Phil saw that blood speckled the wall.

Silence. Painful silence. Just the thought of the request was making Phil's hands tremble, his hold on the sword so loose that Phil wondered why it hadn't crashed to the ground with a clank yet.

"Look, LOOK," Wilbur stepped in front of Phil, forcefully grabbing the man that he always knew to be his father by his shoulders and made him look outside. "How much work went into this? And it's all GONE. And it was because of me." Wilbur said, trying to provoke something within Phil. Phil felt green, so, so sick to his stomach that it was making him light-headed. 

"It's not up for debate," the renegade stated. Phil faintly remembers saying that once to the brothers, having to split them up after a rather nasty argument at dinner. It was leaving a sour taste in his mouth, throat painfully clenched as he looked at his middle child. 

Phil's grip on the sword tightened, knuckles growing white as he thrusted the length of the sword into Wilbur's abdomen. Cutting clean through the carefully weaved and stitched fabric of his shirt; the blade tearing through the skin and into the soft and pudgy flesh. It was surprisingly easy to cut through, making Phil shake at how easy the action was to bring harm and hurt his kin, his  _ son.  _ Phil had closely severed a major abdominal artery, making Wilbur let a gasp for air. His body would surrender, collapsing to the ground as the pain became apparent. He couldn't even try and laugh. It hurt so bad. The pain was crushing Wilbur, drowning him, and pushing him further and further down without escape. Wilbur felt himself reaching out a hand, wanting someone to grab onto it. Anyone.

But he had betrayed them. Betrayed his own country; his own morals and principals; his friends; his family; Tommy.

Someone grasped onto his splayed hand, bringing his arm down from trying to reach the skies. It was warm, grounding, and fond. Everything was rather warm, actually. 

Phil had withdrawn the sword buried in his son's abdomen, shiny crimson blood creating patterns as it trickled down the blade. Phil's chest felt heavy, hands having gone clammy at the sight of his white shirt soaking up the blood that was pooling out from the wound. Blood rolling off from Wilbur's torso slowly like thick molasses. Phil threw the damning sword to the side, hearing the metal clink against stone. Phil was on his knees, hovering over his son as he held onto Wilbur's hand so tightly that he was sure that he was cutting some of the circulation off.

Wilbur wheezed softly at the contact, and when Phil looked at his face, there was that stupid grin gracing his face - the same one that reached his eyes and crinkled the skin around them. Wilbur was weakly reciprocating his father's gesture; his fingers enclosing around the back part of his guardian's hand, fingertips brushing over Phil's knuckles.

Phil had the urge to scream.

Wilbur stared at Phil's hands enveloped around his own, his own blood staining their skin and fingertips. His dark, half-dead eyes flickered to Phil's face. It looked like he was praying. But to what? Wilbur was pretty sure that God didn't exist. Either that or God was a schadenfreude motherfucker. Wilbur let out a gurgling sound that could've been called a laugh, moving his hands to brush the ends of Phil's hair, long enough that they were suspending as Phil had bent over him. "You grew out your hair... I just noticed," he murmured light-heartedly, his voice all too raspy, but Wilbur had a pleased smile on his face. Phil let out a strained exhale as Wilbur continued without mind. "It's longer than I last remembered. Do you think Techno can braid it now?"

If Phil's heart hadn't already been aching, then it had shattered into too little fragments for any sane being to try and piece back together again.

"You couldn't just let yourself win..." Phil dug his nails into Wilbur's skin. It was nothing, the sensation dull compared to the physical pain and ache he was in right now; his brain doing its absolute best to block out the signals his nerves were screaming out. "You just can't be satisfied, even when dawn finally comes after the darkest, can you?"

"Phil." Wilbur murmured, gaining Phil's total attention now. "You know, well, I guess you don't know-" he chuckled. "Dream said earlier- he said 'hey, do you know what? There is no traitor.'" If his father hadn't cut a major artery and wasn't losing tons of blood by the second, Wilbur would be doubling over giggling right now. He let out a dry cough and a giddily grinned in substitute, "he fucking lied, Phil. Phil." Wilbur stared dead into Phil's eyes.

"It's Technoblade. The other traitor is Techno, and do you know what he's got? Phil?" The brunet urged Phil to lean closer as if trying to tell a secret. "He's got two withers, Phil."

Phil's blood ran cold. He knew what Technoblade was capable of, and knowing that he was one of the traitors and that he had two beings of destruction on his side? 

He had to warn them. But to leave his son to bleed to death, alone? 

Wilbur rolled his head to the side as Phil hesitantly put Wilbur's hand down. "Fly as fast as you can, Phil. Go on, go see them," Wilbur cooed.

Phil stood up, expanding his black wings and flapping them experimentally. However, he looked back at Wilbur on the ground, in a pool of his own blood. He bit the corner of his lip. 

"Wilbur... I love you no less. You'll always be my son."

With that, Wilbur felt his clothes rustle and the pool of his blood rippling as the air around Phil's flapping wings swirled. Before he knew it, Phil was gliding over the crater where the podium once stood, towards the crowd at the bottom, and Wilbur was alone with nothing but his thoughts.

Wilbur let out a grave sigh, the severity of the pain finally coming to him now that he had nothing else to focus on. It felt like someone had torn a giant hole into his belly, which technically was right, but Wilbur was just exaggerating it within his mind. He realized his fate, how he was going to bleed out and die alone, with no one to see him to heaven. Or hell. Probably hell.

Wilbur had blown up the heart of L'manberg, and he was going to die with it.

Because L'manberg was his, and that was just a fact. 

The pain was becoming unbearable. He was pretty sure blisters were forming all over him from the chemical exposure to the explosives. His blood was losing the warmth that it once was encapsulating him in. Now it was just lukewarm, almost cold as his body. The brunet's skin was paler than before, almost ghost white now. He was going to die known as a beloved brother and son, a founder of a nation, a father- when in reality, he was just a traitor to his own land; his own family and friends.

Wilbur didn't regret it.

He remembered, distantly as he continued to bleed out, one time where he had gotten hurt as a kid. He was teary-eyed and sobbing, vowing never to try again, but Phil had comforted him. Phil with short blond hair that didn't drape over his shoulders had told him how to overcome the pain. How to forget it.

_ "Now, now, Wilby." Phil had said softly, laughing nervously as Wilbur had frowned at the nickname. "Listen to my voice, yeah? Focus on it..." Phil cupped 10-year-old Wilbur's hands in his. "Name 3 things you remember." _

The burning sensation every time he took a calculated, deep breath.

Crackling of fireworks.

Phil stabbing him with a sword.

_ "Good," Phil had praised with a kind smile, ruffling young Wilbur's hair. The sound of the forest coming to life, with the chirping of songbirds and the rustling of treetops and undergrowth. It was all comfortable white noise. Wilbur let out a squeak of protest, muttering something as he fixed his hair. Phil let out a hearty laugh. "Now three things that you can see." _

The ceiling.

His blood.

Smoke outside.

_ "What about three things you feel?" _

The dull indents of Phil's fingernails in his skin.

His wound.

The slippery stone under him. Guess that could double as his blood, too.

_ "How much more do I need to do?" Wilbur whined, knowing his attention span wasn't that extensive. Phil gave him a toothy grin, knowing that it was working according to plan. "Alright, alright. One more. Five things that make you happy?" _

Wilbur paused, feeling his body go limp.

The van.

The smell and taste of Niki's bread.

Sparring with Techno as a kid.

Being President.

Having the chance to see Fundy grow up.

_ "You feel better now, kiddo?" Phil asked after his answer, a laugh lightening up the forest better than any of the forest's life-long inhabitants could ever. _

"I do, dad." Wilbur croaked out.

"I do."


End file.
